Old World and merry-go-rounds: The Folks Below, Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands, and Bury Me Standing at Ralph's

Sometimes, you know exactly what you're getting. That the bands The Folks Below and Bury Me Standing put on an excellent performance Friday night at Ralph's Chadwick Square Diner was hardly surprising — I had just written about both bands' debut albums for my column Thursday, and am clearly a fan.

But even then, there was something new to discover, and for me, that was North Carolina's Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands, a band that added a dose of carnival madness and musical deftness to the already eclectic and outrageously talented lineup, theatrical panache that well-complemented the other two bands.

Before the show started, I talked to Folks lead singer Holly Brewer about her album and about her previous band, HUMANWINE, particularly a live recording that she was critical of but of which I was rather fond. I tried to explain how I sometimes prefer the rough edges of a live performance to pristine studio recordings. These days, so many recordings are pitch-corrected to death, it's hard to even be able to tell if the vocalists can really sing. In live shows, where the singer has to overcome the normal tribulations of rock clubs — feedback, bar crowds, et al — you see what they're really made of.

Brewer and drummer and fellow HUMANWINE alum Nate Greenslit proved that the great sound on the Folks debut recording wasn't a product of studio magic, performing what was essentially a stripped-down, two-person rendition of the album. What's remarkable is that while between songs the musicians were loose, bantering amiably, something sparked when they began playing.

The sudden moments of intensity were jarring, and captivating, even when Brewer's truly frightening vocal range occasionally challenged the microphone, interrupting the music with a screech. The crowd — largely a listening audience — didn't mind. Indeed, at times, the crowd almost threatened to become a dancing audience. You could see people bouncing discreetly, seemingly against their will, during the folk-punk rocker “Eat Your Face,” but it never erupted into dancing. Which is a shame, because I kind of want to see that song with a mosh pit. It's got the right combination of energy and manic joy for that sort of thing.

But that's almost beside the point — Brewer and Greenslit delivered a set that moved from the folky to the operatic to flat-out rock with aplomb, creating an immensely diverse amount of sound for two people.

As mentioned, Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands were an unknown quantity for me, but they had my attention almost instantly, and by the time vocalist and multi-instrumentalist Bright had launched into a mariachi number (in Spanish, no less) I was absolutely riveted.

The band has a dark carnival feel, harkening back to Old World Europe with an ephemeral, almost-supernatural tinge. Performing as a three-person outfit that night, there were numerous instruments on stage, with Bright herself at one point bouncing between a keyboard, a musical saw and an accordion, all while singing. Indeed, at one point she left the stage, singing and playing accordion while wandering the club. At another point, she played an adungu, or Ugandan harp, and played a drum so hard that her drumsticks splintered, sending wood splinters flying.

But really, what makes Bright such a captivating performer is her voice, smoky with a pop edge sometimes, gorgeously high and theatrical at others. All told, this band wasn't just a pleasant surprise, it was a discovery worth following closely in the future.

As an aside, here's a video for one of the band's more pop-friendly songs, “Especially Your Mother”:

The night finished up with the heavier collision of Balkan folk music and metal of Bury Me Standing. The band, which also features Greenslit on drums, took a lot of the same sounds that the preceding bands used, but made them thicker, often more ominous. There was a density to the music, but also a bit of theatrics, especially watching Greenslit and his wife, Vessela Stoyanova, play tag-team percussion from opposite sides of the stage.

The music's thick sound put a nice capstone on the evening, with Tony Leva's bass giving the music a nice grounded feel, and Burcu Gulec's vocals breaking through the solid ceiling of music. Gulec's voice is full and powerful, the kind of voice that shakes you to your bones, even when she's not singing in English, or simply making musical sounds. The tone carries the emotional content of the song. A second vocalist (whose name I'm afraid I didn't catch) joined Gulec on stage for a few songs, and the harmonies added a great texture.

Second aside: Here's the recent video for the band's “Keep Your Head Down”:

Unfortunately, I had to leave as the clock ticked past 1 a.m., and I left Ralph's with that thick, percussion-driven, folk-charged music still echoing in my ears. It was an evening of confirming favorites, and discovering new ones, but none of it was music that you forget easily. The mélange of Old World European and merry-go-round sounds haunted me deep into the night, and lingered still even after the sun had come up. (Victor D. Infante)